There is a story about how Cassius Clay changed his name to Mohammed Ali. There is an equally interesting anecdote about how Jagran Integrated Business School changed its name to Leeds Metropolitan University. Abhishek Mohan Gupta, director (marketing and strategic development) of Jagran Social Welfare Society, which runs Jagran Integrated, wanted to get his alma mater Leeds Met into the country. For five years, he waded through the maze of government approvals. No luck. Leeds remained out. And Gupta remained stuck.

He then used his last trick. He told the government that he wanted to change Jagran Integrated’s affiliation from Barkatullah University to Leeds Met. Nobody had made a request like that before. The absence of precedent befuddled the mandarins who govern higher education and they ended up giving it a go ahead. Overnight, the soul of Leeds Met entered the body of Jagran Integrated. Last year, 70 students were studying there in four programmes. This year, Gupta is ramping this up to 13 programmes. In a few years, Gupta wants to enroll 1,000 students.

That’s not all; Gupta thinks he can use the 36-acre campus even more efficiently. He plans to add two more universities, make student accommodation and food court common to all three and dub the whole thing an "education city”. He has been talking to Nanyang University, Singapore, and New York University for different programmes. He plans to use the same change-of-affiliation route, though things have now gotten easier.